This invention relates generally to media systems and, more particularly, to systems and methods for merging recorded segments belonging to the same program in response to a recording interruption.
Media systems, such as digital video recorders (DVRs), personal video recorders (PVRs), and other local or remote storage systems for recording and managing media (e.g., television programs) are known. These media systems usually include media guidance applications, such as interactive television program guides, which allow users to perform numerous functions relating to the available media. For example, the user may, among other things, view a list of recordings stored on the media system, view detailed information for each recording, play a recording, delete recordings from the media system, and schedule videos for recording on the media system.
Conventional media guidance applications, however, are limited in their ability to respond to recording interruptions. For example, a media guidance application may be in the middle of recording video when power is cutoff. Once power is restored, the media guidance application may restart recording, creating a second recording of the remaining segment of the video. When the user then tries to watch the video, the user's viewing experience is suboptimal because some video failed to be recorded and each segment of recorded video needs to be found and selected for playback. Furthermore, in some cases, the user may not even know how to find the second recording because it is not clearly identified.
In addition to playback, other tasks associated with the video are also problematic. For example, in order to delete the video, users need to delete each recorded segment individually.
Moreover, in conventional media guidance applications, it is sometimes difficult for a user to determine that a video is incomplete in some cases and then figure out a way to re-record the video. For example, if a user detects that a recording is incomplete (e.g., by noting an inconsistency between the scheduled length and the recorded length or by watching the recorded portion), to get a complete copy, the user typically needs to conduct a manual search for a future airing of the video, which may be time-consuming and cumbersome. In some situations, the user may not even realize that the first recording is incomplete until days later. By that time, the user may have already missed several opportunities to re-record the video.